Pistachios

Thieves steal the weirdest things. Take, for example, a recent big heist I read about. The loot was an entire semitrailer stuffed to the brim with pistachio nuts.

This robbery might seem nutty, but the value of a semi of pistachios is $200,000. That’s not peanuts.

The semi of nuts went AWOL from a company in Tulare County, California. Initially, the executives thought the shipment was simply delayed or misplaced. But when an audit was done and $170,760 was missing, it was time to call in the Tulare County Agricultural Crimes Unit. Apparently, so much produce goes missing that the sheriff had to create this unique department to round up missing fruits, veggies and nuts. Because of their long shelf life, nuts are an especially delectable target.

In this case, the deputies got the hijacker, a trucker working for a contract hauling business. He parked the stolen rig in a lot not far from the nut company and was repacking the huge sacks which contained 2,000 nuts per bag  into smaller packages for resale. If you are a pistachio lover, you know the profit from that would be huge. 40,000 pounds of nuts were recovered. 2,000 pounds are unaccounted for and presumably eaten.

After reading about nut rustling out West, I found this happy tidbit on the Internet…pistachios are called the “smiling nut” in Iran. The answer is obvious, but I had never noticed it before: each half-split nut resembles a tiny smile. I think we all could use a dish full of smiles in America these days.

Photo: Farmers Almanac
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1 thought on “Pistachios”

  1. Theft of Canadian maple syrup is also an expensive problem for producers, although the closed border may be hurting the thieves. Silver lining.

    Reply

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